Short-term memory outcome measures: Psychometric evaluation and performance in youth with Down syndrome.
Emily K Schworer, Kellie Voth, Emily K Hoffman and 1 others
PMID 34922089WHAT IT FOUND
A parent questionnaire and a picture-supported word recall test were the only memory measures completed by most children with Down syndrome.
Direct memory tests often gave very low scores and unstable results, so they should not be used alone to judge memory change.
Key findings
01The DAS-II Recall of Objects and the parent OMQ-PF met the feasibility criterion, with 81.1% and 94.6% completion.
02Every direct memory measure had problematic floor effects, and none reached the good-to-excellent test-retest reliability criterion over two weeks.
03The parent OMQ-PF was not significantly correlated with any direct STM measure.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The testing interval was only two weeks, so practice effects and reliability may differ over 3 or 6 months. Some words were repeated across tests, and the DAS-II Recall of Objects and NEPSY-II List Memory were always given in the same order, which may have helped children remember items. The CANTAB PAL was given near the end of a 1.5 to 2.5 hour battery, so fatigue may have affected completion and scores. Analyses used only participants who completed both visits, but the paper does not report the final analysed number. The sample was recruited through Down syndrome clinics and associations and may not represent all children and adolescents with Down syndrome. The NEPSY-II List Memory was not given to the three 6-year-olds, so that task had 71 participants rather than 74.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the parent questionnaire as a direct short-term memory test. It was feasible, but it was not significantly correlated with any direct memory measure.